Between Life and the Lifestream
by random-k
Summary: Gaara is not insane in the expected sense, nor is he a crazily violent Jinchurichi. He does, however, see dead people.


Between Life and the Lifestream

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_I own nothing but my own Ideas_

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Gaara isn't insane. At least not in the expected sense. He is also not a crazily violent daemon container either (whatever that is). He sees ghosts. When he was younger, he didn't know the difference, and only talked to ghosts. He still does that sometimes.

The ghosts believe that he is some sort of psychopath. He isn't, really. He just kills them. When a dead person dies for the second time, most of them move on. The ones that don't require something more specialized. Actually they all probably require a different method, but dealing with their personal issues is so frustrating, and his current reputation does not help in the slightest.

Temari and Kankuro are an exception to this rule. They believe that they are his siblings, and as much as he hates the Dad, they amuse him, and right now the man is too important to their world to 'kill off' without harming them, so he lets the mans existence slide. For now.

He finds the whole thing odd. Not the whole "I see ghosts" thing he has going on (he got used to the idea that other people don't see them long ago) but the fact that the dead live so in synch with the living of Suna. It's almost parallel.

Gaara is a loner. He doesn't mind. It's hard to 'send' the dead when someone is distracting him from his work. But it's a frustrating, lonely existence, and killing them often acts as an outlet for that. Not a healthy outlet, but nothing in this job could ever be considered healthy.

* * *

Once, when he was very young, he tried to introduce Temari and Kankuro to his mother.

It didn't go well.

Temari and Kankuro freaked out, not wanting to meet his 'Buju.'

His mom, cocked her head, and asked him if he didn't feel a bit old for imaginary friends.

He learned his lesson, and never tried to breach the gap again after that.

* * *

When ghosts die the second time, he calls it going to the Lifestream. He can't call it "passing on", or the afterlife, because they were already dead. He doesn't believe in Kami, or a higher existence. If they were around, why would the dead have to die twice? Surely someone would do something about it. His best guess is a sort of Reincarnation, and Final Fantasy's Farplane and Lifestream fit that better then any other term he can think of.

The Lifestream, is the lifeblood of the planet, a term which reminds him of the Biosphere (life on a planet). So it may not be the most accurate of terms, but there is not nearly enough known by science (the current creators of religious theory in the world). So as the only person who he knows who can see ghosts, he feels entitled to whatever inaccurate terminology he feels like. He could call it the toilet, should he choose, and no one would ever know.

Really, their lucky he's being respectful.

* * *

When he visits Kohana, he almost screams in frustration. There is a whole other city of ghosts here. He left Suna to get away from this. Temari and Kankuro, chalked this up to his 'Buju', whatever that was. In their minds, they came here for the Chunin exams. They also believe that he is their psychotic younger brother, despite his obviously RED hair. How would siblings end up with three different hair colours anyways? Perhaps they chalked that up to his 'Buju' as well.

The Chunin exam is apparently some sort of secret ghost meeting. He figures he can go through the tests, pick off the small fries after they are eliminated (or even killed off by other ghosts), and finish the survivors in style. He really should have remembered that planning is really nothing more then preparing a basic outline for the battle ahead.

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He wonders sometimes, -in the back of his mind- why there aren't more people like him? People who can see and do something about the ghosts. He often theorizes its genetic, passed down through the female line on to an unlucky male with no second X chromosome to hide it. He's never met anyone else who could see ghosts, and for all he knows, he is completely wrong. On the off chance he is right though, he never wants to have kids

* * *

The Chunin exams do not go as he expected them to go.

Oh, it started off well enough. He sent some ghosts to the Lifestream using his sand coffin. Temari and Kankuro don't even object too much, but then insist they finish the exam. He goes along with it, there's no need to get all of them in the second round. Then the preliminary rounds come, and he tries to kill some guy named Lee.

Lee appears to be some abnormality, who is good at evading death. His sensei seams to qualify too, so Gaara decides to back off and get back to them later. A small part of him wonders if they also saw ghosts in life, and that accounts for their goal of youth. Although why they would live to be 'youthful' is beyond him. Either way, the thought that he might end up like this someday, gives him a need to have a long talk with his mom, and re -evaluate his life.

Later he kills Dosu, and feeling he has gotten over his issue, goes to the hospital to try and kill Lee again. That's when he meets Naruto, and notices something weird. Naruto is not a ghost. If anything, Naruto is someone like him, someone who can interact with Ghosts. He is in the middle of wondering why Naruto is not doing anything about the ghost problem of Kohana, when Naruto begins to talk, and the answer practically kicks him in the stomach. To Naruto, this is real life.

He leaves Lee intact at the hospital. He feels like he's going to be sick.

* * *

Later he tracks down Naruto's house. Naruto is not actually an orphan, he has two perfectly ordinary parents. He just doesn't pay attention to them. The ghosts tell Naruto he is an orphan, so he is an orphan. Never mind that Naruto isn't actually dead.

Naruto sith at the table talking about how much he loves ramen, and his mom puts her head in her hands.

"Please listen Naruto. Its chicken pot pie!"

But Naruto ignores her and continues talking about Ramen."

Gaara wonders if his parents ever thought he was this bad. He hopes not. The only real comparison he has to this was the time he 'killed' his 'uncle'. He didn't speak for a week.

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Out of a morbid (it can't really be called anything else in this job) curiosity, he looks up how the so-called rookie nine died.

On team seven, his psychopathic older brother, along with his clan, killed Saskue. Unlike the rest of his clan, Saskue was killed by poison, which helped fuel his delusion that he hadn't and needed to avenge his clan. Gaara feels graceful to Itachi for doing the job right, and making sure the rest of spirits of his clan were under no delusion of their 'living' status.

Sakaura was a stereotypical prom murderer kill. Naruto was not really dead, and Kakashi was a dubious suicide victim. Team eight is ironic. Kunari- a genjutsu artist in death, was an overdose in life, Shino- a strong allergic reaction to bee's, Kiba was mauled to death by an attack dog, and Hinata was a muggers victim.

Most of team nine died in a car crash, except for Neji, who- ironically- died attempting to avenge Hinata. Team Ten's death consisted of a smoking, anorexia, over eating, and a kid who fell out of a window.

He supposes this contributes to their quirks in death- Shikamaru stares at the last thing he saw in life, Sakaura tries to get laid, Shino seeks to control bugs- and in that sense Saskue is the only one handling it in a healthy manor. Saskue is trying to achieve closure.

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Ghosts tend to believe that they are real, and so what happens to them is real. That's why killing them is so effective for helping them pass on. Temari and Kankuro- firm and the belief that they are his older siblings (he is honestly an only child)- watched him grow up, and grew accordingly to fit with his perception. That's why this invasion is so convenient. Many ghosts will accept that they died. He also believes that this is the source of things like Naruto's automatic healing, and his sand shield. He is no more protected then Naruto by anything but a barrier between life and death. Ghosts can't do as much to hurt the living as they can hurt other ghosts, so in their minds, people like him have special defences.

Saskue is one of the exceptions. Saskue is held here, not by delusions of immortality like the snake freak, but by the burning need to kill his brother. So he decides to try and kill Sakaura instead, and Naruto has some kind of melt down. In fact everyone there is having some sort of crazy freak out, so he decides to ignore them, and watch the invasion instead.

At least until Naruto head-butted him out of the blue? Seriously What the Fuck! What possessed him to decide that was a good idea?

Why would he decide to do that?

Why wasn't Sakura Dead?

And since when did Temari and Kankuro decide that being head-butted was a cause for hospitalization?

Nothing made sense anymore!

Later he found out that, Naruto had managed to convince Temari and Kankuro to believe he had stopped being crazy (which was nice, as he never had been Crazy), and that gave them motivation to make him the leader of Suna's ghosts. Kazekage.

It was kind of awesome. Didn't really explain the head-butt, but he could probably live with it. Providing he hadn't been given brain damage.

Ok, it was very awesome. The villagers drooped their fear of him, and even went on missions for him. They loved him. It rocked!

So he decided to do something he hadn't done for six years. He decided to care.

* * *

Call it instinct, call it foreshadowing- even call him a freaking prophet-, Gaara knew Kabuto was trouble the moment he met him. Kabuto could only hear the dead. He stood out, staring at the place where he thought the ghost was. The longer he lived, the better he became at guessing their location. If Gaara could have done one thing over, he would have killed him back in the exam.

It figured Kabuto would cause the zombie Armageddon. He had called the beings of the Lifestream, and bound them to fresh bodies. It forced Gaara to reveal his ability to government authority, and collaborate an army between the living and the ghosts. Zombies (as something both alive and dead) need the efforts of both to be put to rest. If he hadn't, he would be the last person alive.

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He's never actually died. The ghosts all believe it however, because Naruto believes it.

Naruto has actually died. Gaara will one day find out how he kept his powers as a ghost, because Naruto's death broke some of his previous theories about it. Naruto doesn't believe he is dead, because he is still among the ghosts, so he twisted the truth so it became Gaara who died, and was somehow resurrected.

Gaara feels a bit upset that they think that, of course, but is overall glad they haven't declared him a zombie.

He has enough problems with those things lately. These days he talks more to ghosts then people.

* * *

He finds his answer in Naruto's mother.

"I saw them once too you know. I only stopped after I died."

He begins having a major freak-out. He was fairly certain she was alive.

She chuckles at his misassumption. "When I gave birth to Naruto, something went wrong, and I died for seven minuets. When I came back, I couldn't see them anymore. "

"So, I will only drop them when I am truly dead. Or if I die and come back to life."

"Have you seen them lately?" She asks.

She leaves before he has a chance to answer that.

When was the last time he saw one...

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